


an exercise in consumerism

by Spayne



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F, Too much fluff, avoid at all costs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 13:00:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29436450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spayne/pseuds/Spayne
Summary: Where Eve is totally fine that Villanelle isn’t into Valentine’s Day. She’s fine. It’s fine. She’s very busy with work and stuff so.No big deal.
Relationships: Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova
Comments: 27
Kudos: 236





	an exercise in consumerism

Valentine’s Day is a load of shit. 

It’s an exercise in consumerism. An excise you will be counted out of, one that you are proud to be above, proud to have grown out of.

But it's kind of annoying that she seems to be unphased by it too. 

Before you knew her like this, in the way that you can read the creases in her expression to gauge her mood, the way her silences now tell you more than her words, before all this, you’d have assumed that she’d have been a valentines day person. The sort that would buy twee cards, and flowers in too harsh shades of red. 

So this morning you had sealed yourself for it, the adult that you are, preparing for an onslaught of consumerist love from the overgrown teenager that you live with. 

But there had been nothing.

A morning kiss and a coffee. She went to Waitrose early, kissed you on the forehead and asked if you wanted anything special. You’d asked her to buy more kitchen roll. She’d been rude and annoying and lovely and normal, but you’d expected— something different. Not that you wanted anything special per se— but something more than the offer to buy kitchen roll might have been nice. 

Something that made that stupid card that you bought less embarrassing.

But she’d come home from Waitrose and put the food away and said nothing about it so you went upstairs and stewed in your office, opened files and tried to focus on Carolyn’s papers full of blood and bank transfers.

So if your mind drifts to the card in the top drawer of your desk it is not a big deal. 

It's not like you had planned a whole thing or anything. You bought a card, ok fine. You’d imagined a kiss, sweeter than you normally initiate, sure, but whatever, that's not a really not a big deal. Maybe there could have been sex. Ok. Defienately sex. It would have been soft and you’d have given and given in a way that she doesn't normally allow. Then maybe you could—

But it's fine. It's not something you’d given much thought to.

So it doesn't matter that the whole stupid holiday hasn't really registered with her. It's not a big deal for you either.

You’ve got a lot of work to do anyway. This is fine. 

“Eve?” She shouts it from downstairs.

You ignore her. But it's because you are busy with your files, not that you are feeling petty. 

You are the grown up in this after all.

There's a knock at the door to your office.

“Eve?” 

You can’t very well ignore her, not that you want to, but mostly because there is no reason to. You aren’t annoyed or anything, and definitely not upset, it’s simply that you are really busy with work. 

It's fine.

“I'm pretty busy Villanelle. What is it?”

She pokes her head around the door, “Did you want to eat in here?”

Lunch. Alone in your office. Great. On Valentine's Day. Your first with this woman who has changed everything, has taken everything from you and given back more than you could have ever imagined. But it's fine. Not a big deal. You are totally fine.

“Sure.” 

Lunch. Alone. What you wouldn't have given for Niko to make this kind of offer.

She smiles brightly and disappears.

You toss the pen across your desk and open your top drawer. A brown envelope with a card inside. 

You’ll have to shred it. The thought of her finding it, of her realising that you had thought Valentines Day was a thing when she clearly doesn’t is too mortifying to fully contemplate. 

The door opens again and you shut the drawer with a slam.

Her face creases slightly in confusion.

“I bought that cheese you like.” 

She smiles and hands you a plate with a not terrible looking sandwich. You feel the old urge to scowl, or at least to ignore her and turn back to your laptop. 

You remind yourself that you aren’t doing that anymore, disappointment over a non Valentines Day aside, so you half smile instead. “Thanks”

She sits on the sofa in for corner of the room with her own plate and proceeds to tear into her sandwich like a starved wolf. 

Just like any other day.

You turn back to your computer. There’s a man with his throat slit, you read the bio, he left behind a wife and two young children—

“Its Valentines Day.” The words are out before you can call them back

You look up to see her stuffing a fallen piece of ham into her mouth. 

“Oh, er— sure.” She speaks round a full mouth.

You nod in response. 

No one says anything.

“Do they— do they celebrate Valentine's Day in Russia?” You ask her.

She gives you a confused look. “Um. I guess?”

She spent most of her adult life in Paris. Idiot.

“Do they celebrate it in the states?” She asks, her face carefully blank.

“Yes.”

She nods at you in response.

You stare at each other in silence.

Valentine's Day is the worst idea that anyone ever had, ever.

“Do you celebrate Valentines Day?” She asks carefully, setting her plate to one side.

“With Niko? Er, no not really.”

“Okay.” She stretches out the word. 

There’s more silence.

“Is something wrong? You’re being weird.”

You laugh, its high and forced and you wish that there would be a knock on the door, or a phone call, or even a fucking lorry ploughing into the front room, just anything to end this line of questioning.

She pulls a face in response.

“I’m fine!” You reassure her, forcing your face into a winning smile.

“You’re doing a scary clown face. Something’s wrong with you—”

“— I’m absolutely fine. Just busy with work—”

She looks at you appraisingly. You suddenly hope to god that now is the time for those psychopathic tendencies everyone says she has to come to the fore and make it impossible for her to understand the root of your discomfort.

Her head tilts to one side. 

“Do—” She pauses. Then starts again, “ Do you celebrate Valentine’s Day— with me?”

You still. She sees.

“Oh.”

You say nothing.

“I didn’t—” She stops, starts again, “I didn’t think you’d be into it?” 

“Im not!”

“Ok. But you seem— upset?”

“Its an exercise in consumerism, it’s not even a real holiday, I’m—”

“— fine. Right I know, but you seem— Should I have— should I have done something?” 

She looks lost and suddenly you fucking hate yourself for playing these games, knowing full well that you have her at a complete disadvantage, that she has never been in a relationship before, that she doesn’t always know the right things to say, that she relies upon you to help her to get things like this right.

“No, god. It's fine. Seriously.”

“You seem upset?”

“No. I just—” You take a deep breath, close your eyes, “I bought you a card.”

When you open your eyes you see her whole face transformed with— christ— utter joy and surprise and your chest squeezes painfully.

“Can I have it?”

“No.”

“What? Why?”

“You just— you just can’t.”

She looks confused again.

“If I’d bought you a card, would I be able see it?”

You don’t say anything.

She grins. “Be bright back.” She scurries from the room and you are left staring at a blank space and questioning what fresh hell you have brought upon yourself.

You open the drawer and stare at the envelope. It’s nothing too schmaltzy you remind yourself. It’s not that embarrassing. You’d discarded what felt like hundred of cards, too sickly sweet to even contemplate. Settled instead on a white card, a small heart on the front.

_Dear Vil,_

_Happy Valentines Day_

_Love, Eve_

Nothing too revealing.

You can hear her clattering around downstairs and brace yourself for whatever’s coming, then remind yourself that it was the absence this that had you in a funk all morning. 

The door opens fifteen minutes later and she waltzes in with a too pleased with herself smile. 

It almost pulls the words from you. 

No one’s said it since Rome, even though there have been times where you know it’s been on the tip of her tongue, let alone all the times that it’s been on the tip of yours.

She hands over an envelope which she has clearly reused from something that came in the post this morning.

You raise a questioning eyebrow.

“What? Next time you plan to celebrate a holiday that everything I know about you screams you’d hate, give me some notice ok?”

You snort a laugh. She does this you realise, she knows how to draw you from these times when you get too in your head to actually enjoy the possibilities in front of you. 

“Open mine first?” You ask her.

She smiles and she looks so fucking happy you feel sick with it.

You hand over the envelope and she turns it over in her fingers. Opens it. Reads the words. Your chest tightens and her eyes glass, she blinks it away. She chews her lip, smiles around it. 

“Thank you, Eve.”

Your cheeks ache with the grin that pulls across your face. You look down at the envelope in your hands, and when you look back up at her she looks mildly panicked and reaches as if to snatch it away.

“What?” You ask her, pulling the handmade card out of reach.

“Give it back.” She snatches again and you push your chair back further behind the desk out of her reach.

“What? Why?”

She huffs, says sulkily, “I didn’t know we were doing love cards.”

You’d imagined that hearing the word again so soon after Rome would feel weird, or out of place somehow. It’s a surprise when instead of bitterness, you feel light, happy even.

“It’s Valentine’s Day? If not— if not love cards what did you— what’s this?” You pull the card from the torn open envelope. 

Although card is probably too kind a description. It’s two phone bills sellotaped back to back leaving the blank sides showing. You look at it properly. Blink in surprise. Bark out a laugh.

She’s drawn a decent enough picture of Hannibal Lecter on the front. Inside she’s scrawled, “I don’t need a nice chianti to want to eat you.”

“Really? What are you 12?”

“Shut up.” She huffs and slumps onto her chair in a sulk. “If you’d said it was love cards I’d have done a love card.”

You laugh and put the card up on your desk.

“Thank you, Vil.”

Her face softens at your gesture, and she shrugs a shoulder. 

It’s there again. That terrible pull to say the words. The ones you couldn’t bear to hear from her the first time but are suddenly starved for.

“I’m not going to say it now, even if I want to.”

She looks at you.

“Because Valentine’s is shit and not even a real holiday and so I’m not going to.”

She keeps her face carefully neutral, but you see the pretty blush of pink dusting her cheeks in response.

“No. That that’s fine. Good.” Her voice sounds weird.

“Good. Yes.” So does yours.

You nod and feel ridiculous.

She’s chewing her lip again, she opens your card, reads the words, she knows how true they are, she must do.

Then she looks at you, her face so full of love you almost have to look away.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Eve.”

You smile, and hope she sees the same thing on your face that you see on hers.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Vil.”


End file.
